A grant awarded to Syracuse University's library will make it easier for students to find music by artists such as Louis Armstrong, Rosemary Clooney and Judy Garland at the library.
E.S. Bird Library announced last Thursday it received a $250,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant will go toward compiling a database for historical recordings.
SU is working with the New York Public Library, Stanford University and Yale University to create a labeling system that will categorize music and speeches on 78-rpm records so they will be easily searchable.
"It provides us with information to put out there for scholars and researchers who are working in the field," said Pam McLaughlin, communications and external relations director for the library.
The four institutions worked on a similar project in 1983, called the Rigler-Deutsch Index, but this project did not provide accurate information on the labels, McLaughlin said. The new undertaking will attempt to add to and rectify the categorization of the past project's recordings.
The institutions share most of the records, so the project is to swap the information about each album. The four libraries divided the labels alphabetically.
SU's focus will be on expanding information on music recordings from the Decca Records label, which includes performers such as Billie Holiday, Dobie Gray and The Who.
Each recording will contain titles, names of performers, genres and any other items that can be used when searching.
As the data is gathered, it will be available to search for on Summit and WorldCat search engines, which are accessible through SU library's Web site. The actual recordings will not be digitized, but will be available in the participating libraries.
SU had to submit a preliminary plan to the Mellon Foundation to receive the grant. The application process for this grant was quite rigorous, said Suzanne Thorin, SU's dean of libraries.
"It's very difficult to get money from Mellon," Thorin said. "They are very exacting in what they require. So you never can really expect that because you've had a grant before you'll get another one."
Thorin has had experience working with the Mellon Foundation from her previous time at Indiana University.
Despite the application process, SU has received at least three other Mellon grants. The library has another $53,000 for anthropological study of the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, and The College of Arts and Sciences has a $1 million grant for the arts corridor project.
The current recording projects will be completed May 2009. "We hope this is the beginning of a long relationship with Mellon," McLaughlin said.
pldibene@syr.edu
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